A pigment dispersion method is widely used as one method of producing a color filter for use in liquid crystal display devices. Pigment dispersion methods include a method in which a color filter is produced through photolithography using colored photosensitive compositions in which pigments are dispersed in various photosensitive compositions. This method is stable against light and heat since the colored photosensitive compositions contain pigments as coloring agents. Moreover, since patterning is performed through photolithography in this method, a sufficiently high positional precision of the formed patterns is ensured. Therefore, this method is preferable for production of color filters and the like that are used in liquid crystal display devices and the like.
Coloring agents that are extensively studied for use in the production of color filters include pigments as well as coloring compounds other than pigments, such as dyes. Dyes, from among the coloring compounds, that are known include compounds having a wide variety of colorant mother structures, such as squarylium-based dyes, pyrromethene-based dyes, pyrimidine azo-based dyes, pyrazole azo-based dyes, and xanthene-based dyes (refer to, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2008-74922, JP-A No. 2008-292970, JP-A No. 2007-039478, and Japanese Patent No. 3387541). It is also disclosed that a color filter having excellent contrast and the like can be obtained when a specific anthraquinone compound is used as a dye (refer to, for example, JP-A No. 2001-108815).
The use of a dye as a coloring agent is considered to be useful, considering that the hue and brightness of the image displayed at the time of image display can be improved owing to the color purity of the dye per se and the vividness of the hue thereof.
Furthermore, a colored photosensitive composition that includes an organic solvent-soluble dye, an alkali-soluble binder, and a multifunctional thiol compound or the like has been devised, and it is known that a rectangular pattern can be obtained with high sensitivity using this colored photosensitive composition (refer to, for example, JP-A No. 2006-71890). It is also known that a colored photosensitive composition in which a coloring agent, such as a dye, and a low-molecular-weight binder having a specific structure including an unsaturated group are used has improved solvent resistance and the like (refer to, for example, JP-A No. 2009-169231).